It’s been an electrifying last five years for the members of Busty and the Bass, a nine-piece Montreal act who’ve built local stardom into an international following and broken countless musical boundaries along the way. Dozens of sold-out shows and a handful of releases later, the band has established a trademark sound that is at once refreshingly eclectic and powerfully energetic, confounding the more genre-obsessed among us. Graphite sat down with Busty bassist Milo Johnson to get a feel for what makes the group tick, and what challenges they’ve had to face on the road to artistic success.

GR: First of all, thanks so much for doing this interview! I know you guys just got back from your first European tour. How was it?

MJ: It was definitely the loftiest project we’ve ever tried to undertake. The guys always joke that we had never been on a real tour, since every time we’ve gone somewhere we’ve had family there.

We had done nine, ten-day tours before, but this was the first time doing twenty-five days straight, with just a couple of days off. So now, we feel like we’ve finally been on a real tour.

A rite of passage!

Yeah, exactly. It was cool to see a positive response outside of the east coast and west coast of Canada and the US. We went to places some of the guys had never been to before!

At this point, is Busty and the Bass pretty much a full-time commitment?

Yeah, it definitely is.

Was there a specific moment at which you realized that this was real, that you were going to devote this part of your life to the Busty project?

I would say it was different for different people. Something would happen, and that would give one person a vision of what could happen later, and it kind of slowly built from there.

Definitely one of the first milestones was our first reading week tour. Up until then we’d only played two shows outside of Montreal, and this was nine days of playing shows throughout the US, Kingston, and Montreal. We lost a shit ton of money, everybody hated each other, but–

You survived.

Exactly, and that was a big stepping stone. And then as much as it sucks, the Rock Your Campus competition we did in our fourth year just sort of taught us to hustle and gave us our first experience playing in front of a big crowd at a big venue.

“As much as it sucks?”

Well, that was just about the only thing anyone was talking about for a while.

Were you guys afraid you’d get pigeonholed as a campus act?

Absolutely. It was good because it spurred writing, promotion, and a release strategy, but it also led to McGill being touted everywhere alongside us. It was very good for what it was, because it was what we originally became known for. And now we’ve done enough since then so people aren’t really asking us about it anymore, which is good.

Taking things back to your recent tour in Europe, did you guys get to enjoy the cities you played in a bit?

Actually, we did – the way that shows fell into place was pretty perfect. We had three days in London, which never happens, and that was incredible. Normally you arrive in the place the day of and just have two or three hours before sound check.

Did you guys get to party a bit?

Yeah definitely. It’s always a fine balance, because when you have to play fifteen shows over the course of a couple weeks you have to be able balance having fun and staying healthy. When we do get the chance, it’s always really good bonding for us.

We travel with two minivans and a lot of gear, so normally two people have to drive, which doesn’t allow us to all party together. But in Paris we were able to leave our gear at the place we were playing and all party together after the show; that was a really nice moment. Touring and all the logistics involved with it can be a serious grind, but the times where it’s not are seriously special.

Would you say one of your band’s biggest assets is your collective mentality?

Absolutely, every fuck-up is constructive. And I think that’s one of the greatest things about working with guys you’re close with – it’s never any one person’s fault. We realized that early on, if you’re searching for blame it’s incredibly unproductive. And that’s a thing that I see a lot of young artists and companies fall into, especially if you’re working so passionately, it’s very easy to try to find someone to blame. The fact that we don’t is definitely one of our biggest assets.

Considering that you’re such a large group, I wanted to ask you a couple questions about your band’s sound. It’s obviously an incredibly diverse sound, one that people might even have trouble describing. I saw on your website that it was categorized as “electro-soul/hip hop,” which works pretty well. But was your band’s identity subject to debate at any point?

Always, yes. But that was never really the central thing. We know that what we’re ultimately going for is a trailblazing, innovative sound that doesn’t exist yet. That’s sometimes very hard, but it comes as a product of the material being a melting pot for the different inputs of all the members. So we do have certain tracks that fall into clear genres, but some of the more special songs are a crazy blend of stuff that people don’t know how to describe, or even necessarily how to listen to it – and that’s what I get so excited about. Nothing that iTunes could put in their side category.

That’s interesting. We’re faced with so much media oversaturation in this day and age, so it could be a huge advantage to have a sound that hasn’t been done before. It seems like every subgenre has already kind of been figured out…

…And they’re just coming up with new hashtag sub-genres! For sure, and I would say that’s one of our main advantages, that we’ve managed to keep nine very diverse voices together. If you look at most of the projects that are succeeding nowadays, it’s typically one or two guys…

“Two dudes and a Macbook.”

Honestly though! With all the tools everyone has access to for production, promotion – it’s nice, but achieving that modern production is very cookie-cutter at this point, anyone can download Ableton…so that’s made it super accessible, which has made everything really oversaturated.

So how would you define Busty’s brand, or overarching sound? What’s the uniting factor between the soul, the hip hop, all these different elements?

I would say energy. At least for me, that’s the fundamental behind everything we do. Even on the recorded end, and as ridiculous as it sounds, our unique aspect is that we’re all playing. That’s something that gets lost in the production-heavy music world of today, and for a lot of people I think that’s why they really enjoy what we do, it’s a return to the live performance, to the collective groove you get when you get a group of individuals who are each talented at their instruments playing together.

I think it would be safe to say that for a lot of your fans, myself included, you’re one of the few actual bands they go out to see. Here in Montreal at least, a lot of people are typically going mostly to DJ nights.

Exactly, and I think it’s just a matter of understanding the different types of musical experiences there are. All of us love electronic music, some of the most powerful musical experiences I’ve had were at electronic shows and with that tribal, four-to-the-floor rhythm bringing a very specific feeling.

But part of what we want to do as trailblazers is replace DJs at certain events. We played a frosh event last year, where the guy before us was pumping some pretty intense house music. And we were backstage just like, “shit, are we gonna be able to top this?” But we watched the crowd and realized that no one was really interacting with the guy on stage, everyone was sort of in their own worlds. So once we went on, there was just this crazy audience connection, and interchange of energy, which is something that just doesn’t exist in most electronic shows. It’s not a feedback loop, it’s very one-way. I think that’s why people experience something that they haven’t before at our shows.

I think it’s fair to say that over the years, you guys have found a decent amount of fame as well. Have you found that you guys are starting to get recognized in the street by random people?

*Laughs* Yes, that has definitely started to happen. I think the craziest experience so far was after our mainstage Jazz Fest show. That was the first time we had been on giant screens, so walking around Place des Art and up Saint Laurent, people were recognizing us and coming up to us, which was very cool.

Now that you guys have a public profile, have there been any internal debates about how to move forward with your band’s image?

Absolutely, and it’s one of the hardest things to talk about, because we are so many different people, and everyone has a different idea of what it should be. We’re slowly starting to figure out what visual material we latch onto, sort of like our sound. Even for something as simple as our Osheaga tanktops, it was hard for all of us to agree on a design. I think what we need is some kind of branding consultant – but whatever approach we end up choosing, it has to encompass all of the different personalities, because that’s what our brand is ultimately defined by.

One thing that many people would associate with the Busty brand is the fact that you guys were founded in and are still based out of Montreal. Would you say that this city has played a big role in your identity?

I could do an entire interview about how Montreal is part of our business model! I think the biggest thing now is that it’s cheap enough and central enough that you can actually make a living as an artist. If we were trying to do this in New York, there would be no way. And the fact the we’re nine, which is so central to what we do, is only really possible here.

How do you mean?

If you look at any other metropolitan area, the rent is too high, and opportunities for making money are so low, that it would be ridiculous to start a nine-person band. And because it’s so central, we get access to Toronto, Quebec City, the Eastern US…you actually have access to a lot of territory, right in your backyard, so it becomes feasible to launch a band project with this many people.

Also, if you think about the fact that the drinking age in Quebec is 18, this allowed us to play in actual venues for our friends. If we were trying to start something like this in the US, for example, most of the good venues are 21+, and all ages venues are sort of on the down. If we had just started playing Gerts gigs in our fourth year, there’s no way we would have made it. The fact that we were able to take whatever was offered to us gave us so much experience.

Looking forward, then, do you guys have anything big planned for the future?

We’re in the last phases of our next album, we were actually recording all of May, and will be back in the studio in little bits adding the finishing touches over the next two months, which were all super stoked about. It’s frustrating to have to sit on a bunch of music like that, but really exciting when you can listen through the whole work and be like, “fuck, I can’t wait to get this out there.”

Anything planned in terms of the release for that?

We’re looking at probably early 2017 for that.

And you’re going back to the UK beforehand, right?

Yeah, that’s in mid- to late-September. We’re playing in Hamburg, then going to the UK, then doing some shows in France at the end of that.

It’s actually crazy how fast that got put together! We had just gotten back from there and on the plane to Canada, our manager was showing me the general timeline to play the UK again in September.

How did that happen?

The original tour went super well, and the company we were working with in the UK liked it, and put the idea for a second one forward. You gotta strike while the iron’s hot! That’s gonna be crazy, though. We did it the first time and now we have a better idea of what to do, which side of the road to drive on, all that. We’ll figure some more things out this time around!

You have to keep some things close until the time is right! So to wrap things up, what would your advice be to up-and-coming bands who are trying to make it as you guys did?

I think that young bands and musicians should really focus more of their efforts on their live show and performance skills. The music industry is at an interesting paradox point right now, in that most of the money is in live performance, but most development strategy is focused online.

So basically a band can have millions of streams/plays online, and be getting serious show offers, but only have performed a handful of times in their career (not exactly the best recipe for sustainable growth). I think that what really sets us apart is that we spent years and years developing our live show and our performance skills as a group. This allowed us to grow in a number of different cities based almost solely off the buzz of one of our shows, to the point that even now I would say that the majority of our fans know us from our performances.

I think that a lot of younger artists fall into the trap of trying to chase what is cool online, which is how you end up with hundreds of artists and song names in all caps with no vowels (the VWL MVMT) making music that can sound pretty similar. I would encourage young bands and musicians to really dive into their instrument and performance skills, because nowadays the surest way of building a career is by having a killer live show.

Many thanks for your insight Milo, best of luck with your future touring and releases!

It’s been a pleasure!

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Follow Busty and the Bass on their website, Facebook, or Soundcloud.